Writings of a wife and mom who loves to knit

Now, spit!

The River Forest Gansey, aka the anniversary sweater, only has a few ends to weave: the beginning end, the bind off end, and the beginning and ending ends of the neck opening. This is not because I have used one ball of yarn for each piece. On the contrary, I have used over four balls each for the front and the back of the sweater. That should come out eight ends to weave. How did I manage to reduce the number of ends? I spat. Okay, I didn’t really spit because I just couldn’t bring myself to spit in my hand. I also didn’t suck on the yarn because I didn’t want to walk around with a wooly mouth. Instead, I used a “modified” spit splice technique relying on some water and friction to join my natural animal fiber yarn to eliminate ends. Thanks to Lynsey for showing me how to do this one night at our SnB.

To begin, take the yarn from the old ball and one end of the new ball:

Fray the ends a bit:

Wet your hands slightly. The glare on my hands is the water. I use a drop or two of water (see first paragraph on spit):

Apply some friction by rubbing your hands together:

Continue rubbing the yarn until the two ends are felted together:

This will only work on feltable yarns, such as wool, alpaca, wool blends, etc. It will not work on superwash wool, plant based fibers (e.g. cotton), or synthetic fibers. The yarn I am using is Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk which is an alpaca and silk blend. Enjoy!